Shudder
by A Twisted Vine
Summary: Zuko wants to take care of Katara.  ZK


Written for the Zutara Fic Meme at LiveJournal. I'm thinking about continuing this one…

* * *

Zuko didn't realize what the sound was at first. It felt wrong, muffled, a cold shudder in a cold wind.

But in a place like the South Pole, maybe cold was to be expected.

It was dark. Even the moonlight shining off the ice offered little in the way of light. The fire lord huddled under his robes for warmth, feeling like an intruder outside the only hut in this little village that wasn't awash with a candle's glow.

The wind was blowing.

He rapped lightly with his knuckles on the icy frame of the door.

Silence.

He closed his eyes, knelt inside the opening. "You left the banquet early," he said into the wind, "I just wanted to… er." Zuko shook his head lightly. His good intentions always left him feeling dumb. "Make sure you're okay."

He waited a moment, decided she must be sleeping, and turned to leave.

"I'm fine." Her voice drifted from inside, strained in a way he was painfully familiar with, and caught his feet mid-step.

She was hurting.

"Can I… uh, do you mind if I come in?"

Another pause. A breath. "Don't."

Unfortunately for the waterbender, Zuko was a stubborn man. Summoning a bit of courage, he pushed the flap of her door aside and slid into the dark hut, eyes straining to catch her slender form in the shadows. "Sorry," he began lamely, "it was kind of getting cold out there."

"It's kind of the arctic out there," she quipped back.

It was just a bit hostile, but Zuko took this as a good sign. He followed her voice to the corner and found her sitting under a surplus of various skins and blankets. Much else, well, it was hard to see in the dark. "Do you want me to start a fire?"

"No."

He settled beside her on the ground, careful not to lean against her huddled mass. "Maybe a little light-"

"Why are you here?" She interrupted irritably. "I told you not to come in."

Zuko was a bit taken aback, but she _had_ asked him to stay out. He shivered in the frigid air. "I told you, you left early. That's not like you. And then I was passing by your hut-" only a half-lie, beelines and passing by were _almost_ the same thing, "when I thought I heard you… uh, crying."

"I wasn't crying." She sounded angry. "And I don't need taken care of. I take care of people; I can take care of myself."

"Maybe it's your turn to be taken care of." Zuko hadn't meant it any deeper than it was on the surface, but something about this seemed to strike her. He felt her quivering under the blankets, and felt his chest caving in. She was _crying_. Katara didn't _cry_. Not like this. "Wait, Katara, I didn't mean it! Or, I mean, I did. I just…"

God, he was bad at this.

"I'm here for you."

When she spoke, her voice was rough. "I can't believe you're here. Of all people."

Zuko had to admit, that one stung a little more than he would admit. His fingers were going numb. "Were you expecting someone else?" He replied wryly.

She shifted beside him. "Where's Aang?" She whispered softly, "Did he notice me leave early?"

The Avatar's name in her mouth, for some reason, right now, in the dark and in the cold, he didn't like it. He didn't like the way it sounded so heavy when she said it. "I'm not sure," he answered honestly.

It was quiet for a long time. He glanced around the dark room, eyes adjusting to what dim light there was. Just when he was about to go against Katara's wishes and start a fire to save his legs from frostbite, she began moving beside him, wriggled closer, threw the mound of warmth over him as well. It was strange, being under these blankets with her. He could feel her leg pressed alongside his, and within minutes, the fire lord was beginning to sweat.

"I'm always there for him," she mused quietly. To him. To no one. To herself. "He's always so busy."

"Are you two… together?" Zuko felt the awkward sentence fall out of his mouth, but he didn't stop it.

He wanted to know, since the end of the war, years ago. He'd seen the way the Avatar looked at her, but he never saw the way she looked at him, because she always looked away.

The question seemed to hit a spot. She shuddered.

The room was cold, after all.

"Yes."

He tensed, he hadn't meant to. Maybe she noticed, her hand found his and squeezed lightly. There she was, comforting him, in her own pain.

"He wants to get married." Her voice was deadpan. This statement demanded a response. The Avatar was going to marry the waterbender who had stayed by his side, since the day she discovered him in the ice. Who was going to stay by his side forever, when she went through with this.

"That's great." The words were forced. Zuko grit his teeth. He felt like he'd dropped something, and it was clattering to the floor, in his chest.

Katara leaned against him. She was warm, so warm against his arm. "It is, isn't it? A perfect match."

"You don't sound happy."

He shifted his arm so that it rested lightly around her back, but not too close. Not holding, just… touching.

The wind howled around them.

"Maybe," she whispered to the dark, "I want to know what it's like… to be taken care of."

Zuko didn't know how much time passed. He wasn't sure how long he sat there, Katara pressed against him under her fortress of warmth in the corner of her hut. The dark began to turn gray, the pale pink of dawn slipping in through the opening under the door.

He didn't know how long they lay like that, her steady, shallow breaths keeping pace with his heart.

But he knew one thing, as he watched the dark fade to light, pulled his arm around her.

Zuko wanted to take care of Katara.


End file.
